American Heroes

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's…

WASHINGTON — Last week, this column prognosticated that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly would be celebrated by those who hate America. That’s certainly true….

If you happened to read my post a week ago about the e-trace scandal waiting to happen, you’ll be interested in these recent developments in Colombia.

I raised the issue of the ATF sharing its e-trace databases with more than 70,000 non-U.S. citizens in more than 30 foreign countries as a huge potential security threat, since these databases contain reams of personal information on millions of American citizens.

Many of these foreign governments are as corrupt as the day is long, and that makes for a huge potential threat of massive identity theft.

Now reports from Colombia (one of the countries with access to E-trace) that government officials have been sharing classified documents with Narco-cartels should make every American shudder. 

The U.S. government should lock down these databases immediately and cut off access to foreign governments. All it takes is one corrupt official who decides to make a little extra income by selling the names, social security numbers, drivers license numbers, addresses, and other personal details to the highest bidder – which may very well be hackers bent on stealing your identity.

Someone needs to do something about this before it’s too late.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York next week to address the United Nations General Assembly, he will present himself as a great "humanitarian." Many of the America haters…

Sergeant Dakota Meyer became the first living Marine in 41 years to wear the nation’s highest award for valor when it was awarded to him on thursday.

But if he could have chosen, he never would have had to do what he did to receive it.

Meyer saved the lives of more than 35 of his fellow Marines and their Afghan counterparts during a horrific firefight two years ago.  He charged into enemy fire again and again, retrieving the bodies of two of his fallen friends in the process.  To do this, he had to disobey orders not to enter the kill zone. 

Three Army officers are likely looking at the end of their careers today for refusing to send reinforcements to aid the beleagured Marine Embedded Training Team and the Afghans they had been training.  Unfortunately, it’s a scenario that is being seen all too often in Afghanistan today – something I’ve referred to as “institutional timidity” on the part of rear-echelon commanders in theater.  As the war has dragged on, it has become more and more apparent with each passing year – too many officers are more concerned with avoiding losses than they are with winning the war – more concerned with following rote procedure than with leading their men to victory.  

This sand in the gears of the military machine has led many junior non-commissioned officers to throw up their hands in disgust, and more than one that I know personally has made the choice to leave the military when they had  previously planned to make it a career.  Worse yet, bureaucratic cowardice has, without a doubt, caused the needless deaths of dozens of American men and women.  And it is a real shame to see.

But the good news is that for every indecisive rear-echelon commander there are dozens, if not hundreds of audacious warriors like Sergeant Dakota Meyer.  Men who are willing to put their fledgeling careers on the line to do what they know is right even when commanded to do otherwise.  This willingness to act of their own accord has always been the hallmark of the American NCO – and it has always been the singular trait that sets our military apart from any other.  Not that they are a bunch of out-of-control yahoos – far from it.  Today’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on the front lines are tough, professional, and best of all, audacious.  And qualities like that give me hope for the future of this war.

Everyone older than 20 remembers whom he was with, what he was doing and how he learned we were at war that beautiful Tuesday morning a decade ago. Most of us recall a gorgeous late-summer morning with blue skies –…

How would you feel if our government collected your personal information – including your name, address, date of birth, place of birth, height, weight, sex, driver’s license information, and vehicle information, then made it available on the internet for hackers to get hold of?

Upset?  Vulnerable?  Furious?

Well, if you’ve purchased a gun from an authorized dealer anytime since 1989, you might want to sit down.

The ATF’s trace request submission system, known as eTrace, does just about what I’ve described above.  It’s a series of databases that track gun purchases in the US, and whenever a citizen applies for a gun in the U.S. the form they fill out gets filed with the ATF’s eTrace system.  This is used by law enforcement agencies to trace weapons to their original owners, among other things.

Only in the last couple of years, this system and its data has been made available to the law enforcement agencies of more than 35 countries.  Places like Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Suriame, Jamaica, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.  What do many of these countries have in common?  Deep rooted endemic corruption throughout their government and law enforcment agencies. 

As of right now more than 17,000 people around the world have access to the data in this system.  What are the chances a couple of them might decide that selling the personal information (to include Social Security Numbers) of millions of Americans might make a profitable side business?

How do you feel about your personal information being made available in real time to foreign governments?  Perhaps it’s time to tell your elected officials to do something about that.

WASHINGTON — Some have described Hurricane Irene as “the most over-hyped event in history.” Americans in the Northeast who were flooded out of their homes and businesses and those without electricity, fuel or water…